daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
These photos were taken at my brother’s garden. Before moving to Texas, I never really thought about the amazing variety of plants that can thrive because of the mild California weather.
Perhaps in reaction to the terrible ice storm and damage to the yard we experienced a few weeks ago, I spent some time getting ready for this summer’s veggie crops. And by using the work “crops”, I am being VERY generous. Usually we just have several pepper plants and maybe a tomato plant, plus various herbs. This year, I have a few Scotch Bonnet plants that survived the winter and are growing nicely already. I also have some habañero and Italian parsley that are thriving.
I addition to these holdovers from last year, I (so far) added a jalapeño plant, Japanese eggplant, and zucchini squash. And lastly, we have a sweet potato that has developed shoots, so that will be going in the ground soon too.
I don’t have much of a green thumb, but gardening is something fun to learn and can be delicious too!
Today I planted some jalapeno seeds in small containers. It’s the earliest I’ve done it, but I am still a few weeks late according to the experts. But I think I’ll be okay! Last year, I started so late and our pepper plants didn’t product much fruit, but I am confident this year we’ll have a nice harvest. Our Scotch Bonnet plants from last year actually survived the winter and are already sprouting new leaves which is surprising!
In order to boost my chances with these seeds, I’ve enlisted the help of a sloth guardian. 😄
Mariko and I made a trip down to South Austin to visit The Great Outdoors Garden Center. It is an excellent nursery! First, their COVID-19 precautions are good, all the employees are masked up, there’s sanitizer available, and they limit the number of people on-site at one time. That being said, the selection of plants is wonderful, with plenty of native species, and they even have a greenhouse full of houseplants. It’s probably the best selection of houseplants I’ve ever seen, although I admit to not going to many nurseries. They also have a large selection of wind chimes, which sounded so soothing and beautiful that we ended up buying a small one.
We don’t get out much because of the pandemic, but The Great Outdoors Garden Center was a relatively safe place to visit and shop. Besides the wind chime, we bought several small plants and succulents. Exciting!
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Each year we plant a few herbs and peppers in pots on our deck and this year, we have a new-fangled planter that we will try out. It’s a small self-watering planter, with space for multiple small veggies. It recommended between 6-8 pepper plants, which I think is too many, but we’ll see how it does with the seedlings we planted:
We also left space to plant some Scotch Bonnet seeds that my mom is bringing over for us. It’s funny, but those seeds have found their way from Miami (and maybe Jamaica?), to California, and then here in Texas.
This planter was on sale, so we bought it for only about US $17, so we can’t go wrong. Last year, our Jalapeño plant grew like crazy but didn’t give us any fruit. 😞 Here’s hoping this one will bear plenty for us. The mix that the directions called for is potting mix, dolomite, and fertilizer. Could this be the secret combination?
I hope you had a good day!
またね～
